I'm not going to lie, The Polish Discovery and I did not get off to a good start. The problems started before I actually read the prologue. I was reading the author's note in the beginning and he mentions his interest in Greek Mythology first began when he saw, "The Lliad [sic] and the Odssey [sic]." I have several books on my shelves that have one or two typos; no book is going to be completely free of errors, but two typos that early in a book make me a little wary. Shortly after getting to the main content I realised this book desperately needed an editor. In the first two chapters I found multiple sentences that were oddly structured, poorly phrased and overall just jarring. I've included some of the worst culprits below.

"His head was on a swivel as he pushed his way past the throngs of people buying food and other wares for their homes in the busy open market."

"Instead, he pretended to follow the God Pharaoh's complicated system of polytheistic, beliefs in many deities and gods."

"His name was Ethan, his translation meant, 'enduring'."

"He was attempting to find a street with the address of a particular building."

"To the locals, the men looked like veterans of many vicious war campaigns. The horses also appeared to be war veterans. To anyone that encountered them, they clearly appeared to be a protection detail."

"The chilled morning air magnified the sound of twenty-four horse hooves clip-clopping along the small cobblestone streets. The sound announced their menacing arrival."

"Jakub turned into a renowned architect, servant of the government."

"Jakub Banyon was bewildered by the statement and flapped his arms in confusion."

Despite the poor sentence structure and hints that this book had never seen an editor, I struggled through because I really wanted to like this book.

Chapter two brought to light even more issues with the writing. We have two characters who seem to have a shared history. They haven't seen or spoken to each other for some time, but they both have access to the same information. As a way to communicate this information to the reader, the author chose the info dump method of informing his readers instead of allowing the information to develop more organically. This method is commonly seen in poorly written movies; it's not fun to watch and it's just as awkward reading in a book. This is just an excerpt of their conversation, which continues on for 3-4 pages.

" ' I knew they had been lovers for a long time, but was surprised that she wouldn't help him reestablish his throne. He was actually a virtual prisoner in Russia,' Jakub Banyon told the old man to clarify. 'He did attempt to return, but was stopped by the Russian's garrison. They locked him up.'

'I know this too,' replied Thaddeus sadly. 'That was how I got out of the Russian prison after the uprising. You know the prison. It was the one where you and the other judges sent me. When Tsar Paul I became the leader after Catherine died, he pardoned me along with many other political prisoners. He hated Tsarina Catherine, and wanted to overturn some of her decisions. The only condition of my pardon was that I leave Poland. I went back to America instead and stayed there for several years.' "

As you can see from this small sample, it just doesn't work. The characters are talking to each other, but really the comments are directed toward the reader and you have to be a pretty fantastic writer to break the third wall. Once they've established their shared history, they move on to discuss The Magic Belt of Poland. I was somewhat curious if this was an actual artifact and a little confused by the change in writing style midway through Chapter 2; so I did some research. Three links down on the first page of search results, I found this website: http://lilithgate.atspace.org/articles/magic.html.

"The original belt was 2.28m (89" long) parchment scroll with magic symbols inscribed on the outside and the prayers for them written on the inside of the Belt . . . Invoking the talismans, one would take the belt off and stand in a circle with their hair loose."

If you've read the book, that probably looks a little familiar, that's because you can find a very similar section in the second chapter.

". . . the knight would take off the belt, and they would stand in a circle with their companions, with their hair loose . . . The original belt was actually a piece of parchment which was eighty-nine inches long. The back of the belt contained magic symbols with prayers used to control the talismans."

I was unable to find where the following section originated from, mostly because I'm lazy. Also, I felt at this point I had put way more time and effort into this book than it deserved. I'm still curious though, so if anybody is able to discover its original source, please, let me know.

"Its membership at the time of the American Revolution boasted George Washington, Ben Franklin, Paul Revere, and many of the revolutionary leaders. In Europe the Freemasons were even more secretive, but the nonetheless were a strong society."

You cannot just alter the order of the words or swap out one word for another and claim that the material is your own.This is true in both non-fiction and fiction.

Despite all the set backs, I read Chapter Three. I should say I read part of Chapter Three, because I never actually finished this book. I'd like to say I've never read a book that treated its female character so horribly and I haven't, because I didn't finish this book. I could list all the things that I object to in the part of Chapter Three I did manage to slog through, but honestly that list would be so long, it would fill five pages at least. It would also require me read it again. I will note however, if you've got a knife taped to your leg and you get into a fight, you should probably remove it the first chance you get. First, you could actually use that knife in a fight. More importantly, if you're jumping around and kicking people, you probably don't want sharp object that close to your femoral artery. Overall, this book was a huge disappointment. It was poorly written, sections were plagiarized and its one and only female character was treated like a sex object. I gave this book 1/2 star.